Management of a major Life Science Development Project
Public Health England (PHE) is the public sector organisation tasked to protect and improve the nation's health and wellbeing, and reduce health inequalities. PHE is an executive agency, sponsored by the Department of Health. At Porton Down in Wiltshire PHE has laboratories capable of handling and studying the most dangerous pathogens. These facilities have reached the end of their useful life and need to be replaced. PHE also needs to update its facilities to reflect changes in science and the development of the organisation. The Science Hub is a proposed replacement of the Porton Down facilities and will become the national centre for public health science and services creating a centre of excellence for research, health improvement and protection.
This will be a multi-million pound programme involving complex design and construction issues with wide-ranging implications for the organisation, staff and stakeholders. Concerto was awarded a role to support Programme Management Office (PMO) for the Science Hub Programme. PHE wanted to have support in the day-to-day management of the programme and to be able to call on expert advice as technical issues emerged.
Bringing clarity of purpose – setting priorities
The Concerto team set up and ran a Project Support Office (PSO). The small team, with experience running large life-science programmes and who also had previous experience working with design teams acted as a buffer between project designers and the PMO. The PSO team ensured that there were robust procedures and processes to capture and coordinate project data. They ensured that the PMO was allowed to focus key tasks and that issues and risks were brought to their attention as they arose. Concerto was able to provide additional support as required.
This included reviews of risk and risk management. We also provided support in relation to aspects of the Outline Business Case (OBC) including the economic model, the definition and selection of options.
PHE has developed an OBC that has been cleared by the Department of Health and the Treasury. The final decision on the future of the programme was postponed by the Government in the run up to the 2015 General Election. PHE is still waiting for a final decision on the future of the Science Hub Programme.
